MG Diagnosis based on Necropsy what about my other birds?

[tommysgirl]

I had a flock of about 35...20 of them chicks from this winter/spring when I had an illness outbreak. I culled all sick birds, bleached the daylights out of the pen where all of the affected birds had lived and sent my patient 0 to UCD for necropsy. The diagnosis came back MG and Coryza and I began doing research.

For both conditions I have found many scholarly articles that say that affected birds who were treated and are no longer symptomatic are still carriers. I do not have any of those because I culled any bird that showed ANY sign of eye bubbles, puffiness lethargy etc. I do have the 28 birds who remain. They are active and lively and healthy. They all range together but live in three separate pens.

I have not found any academic, scholarly articles that tell me if these guys are carriers. None of them ever showed any symptoms. Popular wisdom on BYC is that it is the case and I am currently operating under that assumption but I would love to know, and I would like a citation please of any sources that can accurately give me the answer to my question: Are birds who have shared yard and/or range space with birds who became ill with MG/Coryza but did NOT show any signs of illness themselves carriers of the diseases for life?

Thanks so much for your help

 

[Folly's place]

My understanding is that all your birds are involved, whether they acted ill or not. There's a very simple lab test for this; here in Michigan tracheal swabs to the MSU path lab will answer the question. It's been $20 per swab, with up to six birds on each swab. Talk to the folks at UCD about it. Mary